


Pledge

by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)



Category: Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming In Pants, Complicated Relationships, Confessions, Frottage, Guilt, Hand Jobs, M/M, Pining, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:53:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25186696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/pseuds/Sandrine%20Shaw
Summary: Curtis didn't kill Edgar, so Edgar is his responsibility now.
Relationships: Edgar/Curtis Everett
Comments: 15
Kudos: 63
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	Pledge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asuralucier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/gifts).



> asuralucier - your requests left me spoilt for choice, but your excellent prompts for Curtis/Edgar made me zero in on this one! I hope you enjoy the fic! :D
> 
> Thanks to the lovely Sara for the beta and the cheerleading! <3

When you save someone's life, you become responsible for them, people say. 

It's something Curtis once read. He can't remember where; it must have been before the world died underneath a suffocating, icy blanket of white. Before life turned into a daily struggle for survival to the tune of an ever-present whirr of machinery, the train tearing through the barren, glacial wasteland and drowning out anything that used to be important. But for some reason, unlike all the information and knowledge from the old times that Curtis forgot over the years, those words have stayed with him.

Saving a life and _not taking_ a life aren't the same thing, nowhere even close, but it turns out the same principle applies: Curtis didn't kill Edgar, so Edgar is his responsibility now. It's a burden he accepts as a kind of penance at first, when the guilt is still fresh. As the years grind by, one brutal circle around the snow-covered world after another, it becomes less about atonement and more about protectiveness, rooted in who Edgar is rather than what Curtis has done. 

Soon, it's no burden at all anymore. Nothing he consciously has to think about; habitual at first, and then instinctual. As if Edgar was an extension of him. Like an extra limb Curtis could cut off no more easily than his right arm.

(Unlike with his arm, he doesn't bother trying.)

*

One night, Edgar comes back to their bunk sporting a split lip.

"What happened?" Curtis asks, protective instincts flaring up like a flash fire and putting him on alert. When he reaches out, Edgar twists away. "Hey, wait a minute—"

The look Edgar gives him is scathing. "I'm not a kid, Curtis."

The petulance in his tone almost belies the words, even if he's right. He hasn't been a kid in a while, but Curtis can't help it. Compared to Edgar, he feels old and world-weary. 

"Doesn't mean you should be walking around getting into fights." 

Not like Curtis hasn't done his fair share of brawling, both before the train and on here. Sometimes still does, if he has to. Not every conflict can be solved with talking things out, and diplomacy never came easy to Curtis to begin with. But Edgar's temper burns hot, and Curtis worries that one day he'll throw a punch at the wrong guy and end up with a shiv in his side, or worse, facing down the guard's rifles.

If Edgar is aware of his concern, it bounces off him. He grins, and the smile stretching his mouth makes the smear of blood spread further, a crimson stain painting his lower lip. 

"Who says I've been fighting?" He throws the words out there like a challenge, provocation clear in the way he looks at Curtis, daring him to say something. It makes Curtis uncomfortably aware of all of the other ways Edgar might have got himself that split lip, what he might have been up to and with whom. 

Edgar raises an eyebrow at Curtis, his blood-tinted smirk unwavering. And how—How _the fuck_ 's Curtis supposed to respond to that? 

If he had enough self-control, he'd walk away and let Edgar have this one. But he can't stop staring at Edgar's mouth, at the touch of red moisture gleaming obscenely under the overhead lights, the way Edgar's tongue darts out to lick it off and leaves his lips wet and pink. 

The moment stretches: tense, fraught, until Curtis finally looks away. Only then does Edgar step back and climb into his trunk, leaving Curtis wondering what the hell just happened.

*

He sometimes hears Edgar in the night.

He's got a light sleep, constantly alert, and Edgar is no quieter when he lies down in his bunk than he is when he walks the corridors. The noises he makes keep Curtis up more often than not: Edgar's nightmares. His quiet, angry sobs. His twists and turns as he restlessly shifts underneath the ratty old blanket, the metal of the bunk creaking and whining in sympathy.

Other noises, too. Stifled moans, shuffling, the unmistaken sound of flesh moving against flesh. Words even, occasionally, muffled but clear enough in the nocturnal quietness.

The first time Curtis heard Edgar call out his name, he almost sat up and went to check on him. Stupid, really. He knew exactly what was going on in the dubious privacy of the bottom bunk, only too well aware that Edgar wasn't being attacked in his bed and crying out for help. 

So he made himself stay put and keep his mouth shut. Rigidly lying four feet above, silently listening to Edgar get off.

He felt like a creep. But goddammit, his dick had been so hard it was painful.

He didn't touch himself that night. Told himself that would be crossing a line, as if the fucking _line_ hadn't been crossed already. Pretended that it was just a natural reaction, that it had nothing to do with Edgar saying his name while he was jerking off, that it didn't mean he wanted Edgar. 

But the next morning, during one of Gilliam's speeches, he snuck away to find a secluded spot to relieve some of the tension.

He braced himself against the wall with one arm stretched out, pulled his dick from his pants and wrapped his hand around it. Trying to keep his eyes open, because every time he closed them, he saw Edgar's face and that was—He couldn't—

He wasn't gonna let himself do that. So he kept looking at the dirty, bent metal in front of his face and didn't imagine pushing Edgar against it, didn't imagine it was Edgar's long, slim fingers on his dick instead of his own, didn't let himself remember Edgar moaning his name in that breathless tone from last night.

When he came, he bit his lips so hard that he tasted the sharp, metallic tang of blood.

He snuck back to the others before Gilliam was done, Edgar's head twisting around towards him as he pushed through the crowd. 

"Where've you been?"

Curtis hushed him. "Pay attention."

"What? Like you've been doing?" His lips curled, a there was a sly, amused gleam in his eyes, like he knew exactly what Curtis had been up to and who he'd had been thinking about.

Embarrassment churning molten hot in his stomach, Curtis gently cuffed the back of Edgar's head. He wouldn't let this happen again, he told himself.

(It happened again. And again. And it keeps happening.)

*

The thing about Edgar is, he never knows when to stop pushing.

It drives Curtis up the wall. The kid's restless energy, his rage, his passion. His hunger for change. His impatience.

Was Curtis like this too when he was eighteen? He can't fucking remember. It feels like lifetimes ago.

The metal frame creaks when Edgar pushes himself up into Curtis's bunk. 

"When are we finally gonna do something?" he asks, and Curtis freezes. His mind takes a sharp left turn and his gut clenches uncomfortably before Edgar adds, "We can't let them get away with this forever."

Right. The revolution. The other thing Edgar's been pushing for.

Earlier today, the guards dragged off Yun's oldest, and Yun's sobs haven't ceased all day. Curtis can still hear her crying now, even though she's at the far end of the wagon. The girl's a teenager, years older than most of the kids they take. Maybe that's why Yun thought she was safe. 

Curtis doesn't want to think too hard about what happens to the ones that disappear through the doors, never to be seen again, remembers pushing Edgar underneath beds and behind ratty old curtains to hide him when he was younger, but there's no way to protect everyone.

Edgar's right. They can't let them get away with this forever. But for now, they have to.

He turns to Edgar, but it's much too dark to make out his face. 

"We won't," he promises.

"Yeah? When? Because all Gilliam does is talk, and all you say is that it's not time yet. What the fuck are we waiting for?"

Curtis can't answer that. He doesn't know when the time will be right. The messages in the protein blocks are cryptic, but Curtis is sure that whoever's sending them will let them know when to act. Gilliam will figure it out. Until then, they just have to be patient.

When Curtis says that, Edgar lets out a frustrated huff. 

He shuffles over until he's next to Curtis. He's small and wiry, but the bunk is too narrow for two grown men and they end up pressed together from shoulders to legs. Curtis almost jerks away at the first brush of skin against skin, Edgar's bare arm resting snug against his own, but there's nowhere to go. 

"What d'you think it's gonna be like, after?" Edgar wants to know. 

It's a loaded question. Curtis can't think of that now, doesn't want to allow himself to imagine a life beyond this. It's dangerous to dream of things he might never get to have. Right now, there's only this, and the hope that tomorrow won't be worse than today. Beyond that... who knows. 

Oblivious to Curtis's gloomy apprehension, Edgar is still talking his ear off, speculating about life after the revolution. "—you think we're gonna have a democracy? Elections and all?"

"What do you know about fucking elections?"

"Tyrone told me."

"Oh yeah?" Curtis snorts. Tyrone is—what? Maybe two years older than Curtis? He definitely isn't old enough to remember elections, or anything real about what society used to be like before the train. Hell, _Curtis_ is barely old enough to remember. "Tyrone's talking shit. What else has he been telling you?"

"Are you jealous?" 

Edgar is sitting so close now that his amused huff of breath brushes against Curtis's face, and Curtis is aware of the gleeful smirk aimed at him. 

He shakes his head in instinctive denial. "That's not what I—"

"Because you don't have to be," Edgar says, quiet and sure. 

Curtis jumps when he feels Edgar's hand on his thigh, the touch rough with calluses and cold against Curtis's skin. 

Once he remembers how to breathe, he inhales a sharp, unsteady gulp of air. "Edgar." 

It's meant to sound forbidding, warning the kid away, but the way the name rolls off his tongue is all wrong. Too soft, too breathless. 

"Yeah?"

Curtis feels feverish and queasy with want. He imagines pulling himself up and pushing on top of Edgar, pressing him down into the mattress and _taking_ him. Fuck him until he's soft and quiet and stops pushing and pushing and never knowing when to give Curtis a fucking break. Mark him up in bruises to show everyone that he belongs to Curtis. 

And why shouldn't he do it? Edgar's clearly offering, and he's old enough to know what he's doing, so why not— 

He balls his hands into fists. 

_Remember what you did to his mother. Remember what you almost did to_ Edgar _. You don't get to have this,_ he reminds himself. A renewed stab of guilt, enough to muster up the resolve to smother the flames of want before they can start a fire. His vow of protecting Edgar includes protecting him from himself, if necessary.

"Go to sleep." He turns away, dislodging the wandering hand in the process.

Of course, it's not that easy. Edgar wouldn't be Edgar if he just accepted Curtis shooting him down like that. He leans across Curtis's tense body to peek at his face. 

"You sure?" he asks, in that tone he got when it's clear that he expects Curtis's resolve to crumble.

It can't. Not about this.

Curtis grinds his teeth. "Yeah, I'm sure."

He demonstratively closes his eyes. It takes endless seconds until, at last, he feels the mattress shift as Edgar climbs down into his own bunk. 

Curtis breathes a sigh of relief. It tastes almost like disappointment.

*

Alarm cuts through the air, shrill like a knife to the eardrum.

Curtis jumps from his bunk, instantly wide awake. He's on his feet and has Edgar pulled out of bed even before the doors hiss open and the guards' heavy booted footfalls echo through the wagon. 

Edgar grumbles, annoyed. Still sluggish with sleep and clearly not pleased at being dragged out of his bed unceremoniously. Tough luck. Better Curtis than the guards.

He pushes Edgar into a narrow alcove of storage space between the bunks to make room for the patrol to carry out their unscheduled inspection, let them look for whatever it is they're looking for tonight and pray to a God he doesn't believe in that it's not him or Edgar.

"Why don't—"

"Shhhhh." 

Curtis presses close and holds his breath, hushing Edgar's angry protest with his hand. Fast, hot breath against his palm, and the dual sound of their racing heartbeats unnaturally loud in Curtis's ear. 

Around them, agitated voices. Shouts. Clattering.

They're lucky. The guards hurry past them without giving them a second glance.

Curtis only dares to breathe again when he hears their footsteps grow quieter as they move further down the train. Once the tension bleeds out of his body and the drumming in his ears slows down, he becomes acutely aware of how damn close Edgar is. They're squeezed together chest to chest in an effort to take up as little room as possible and be as invisible as they can. Not an inch of space between them, with Curtis's left leg wedged firmly between Edgar's.

Against his thigh, Edgar is obviously, unmistakably hard. 

Curtis freezes. He means to pull away, he really does, but he's rooted to the spot, suspended in place just as rigidly as the frozen bodies of the Seven out in the snow.

His eyes lock with Edgar's. There's challenge in the way Edgar looks at him, barely concealed in by the shadows obscuring his features. 

"You gonna run away again?" Edgar asks.

His voice is barely above a whisper, just loud enough not to be drowned out by all the noise in the air, but Curtis flinches at the sound anyway. The motion makes him rock forward, and the effect on Edgar is instantaneous. His breath hitches, his eyes flutter shut, mouth falling open. Curtis can't look away.

Edgar's hands come up to grip the lapels of Curtis's jacket, and Curtis is prepared to dig in his heels if Edgar tries to pull him in. But all he seems to be doing is steady himself. And that's—It's okay. Curtis can give him that. 

He tells himself he's going to step away as soon as the guards have left, but they still haven't returned from the far end of the wagon and Curtis doesn't want to risk it. They need to stay put. It's not going to be a big deal; he'll just stay very still and—

Edgar grinds down. 

His dick rubs against Curtis's thigh; two layers of weathered denim between them, and yet they might as well be stark naked. Curtis can feel the heat of it, the firmness, the way it's curved slightly to the left. Can't tear his eyes away from the rapt concentration written all over Edgar's face as a low whine tears from his throat, followed by a string of curses.

"Dammit, Curtis, please. Fucking do it already, you—"

Curtis cuts off whatever expletive was going to come by clamping his palm firmly across the kid's mouth again – half because he doesn't want anyone to notice them in their hiding place, half because Edgar's begging is _too much_ and makes it impossible to think past the way his gut is tight with need. 

Edgar glares at him mutinously. He doesn't try to shake off Curtis's hand, but Curtis can feel Edgar's fists clawing his clothes, pulling Curtis closer, and he's lacking the willpower to stop it. 

_Fuck it._ Fuck it all to hell. 

He angles his leg a little to the left and presses more firmly against Edgar's groin, deliberately and with intent. He feels the answering moan wet and hot against his palm. It's apparently all the permission Edgar needs to start humping his leg for real, his hips snapping forward, rutting against him, seeking friction as his dick drags across Curtis's thigh in a frenzied rhythm. 

His breath huffs faster and faster against Curtis's palm, and Curtis stifles the noises as good as he can. 

It doesn't take long until Edgar's body arches like a bow drawn tight and his face tenses up. Curtis's fingers clamp down hard across Edgar's chin to catch the sound of his orgasm. His groan vibrates obscenely against Curtis's hand, and he lets the kid ride it out until he slumps against the wall, boneless, letting go of his jacket at last.

His own dick is achingly hard in his pants. 

He closes his eyes and wills it down, but it won't obey. Not when even behind his shut lids, he can't stop seeing the naked want on Edgar's face and there's a constant replay of the muffled sounds he was making stuck in Curtis's head. 

He reaches down to adjust himself, but Edgar is faster, his strong fingers cupping Curtis firmly through his jeans.

"Let me."

Curtis pulls in a shaky breath of air. "Edgar—" 

This is crossing a line, he thinks. Then he almost laughs at the thought because, fuck, he's been steadily moving that damn line for so long that all that's left of it is a blurry mess, so he should just stop pretending already. The guilt's gonna eat him up alive anyway, he might as well go all in.

So he doesn't grab Edgar's wrist to hold him back. Doesn't tell him no. Doesn't stop him when he starts gently kneading him. The sudden pressure against Curtis's dick hits him like the barrel of a gun against his temple, and he bites his lips to stop the groan.

"Yeah, that's it," Edgar says, sounding wrung-out but satisfied. "Feels nice, doesn't it? Could have had this a hell of a lot sooner if you'd let me."

Curtis doesn't argue.

It's not the world's best hand job, clumsy and hindered by the awkward angle and the coarse fabric of Curtis's pants, but it's _Edgar_ – Edgar's hand on Curtis's dick, Edgar's fucked-out voice providing running commentary, and that's enough to make Curtis come embarrassingly fast, spilling in his pants like a stupid, horny teenager.

Afterwards, he allows himself a moment to lean into Edgar. Just a few seconds of resting their foreheads together and breathing the same air before the guilt and the self-loathing and the reality of what he's done intrude into the narrow alcove.

Curtis doesn't have to wait long until it happens. Until he remembers all the reasons why this was a terrible idea, why he can't allow himself to have this, why he doesn't deserve Edgar and never will.

He pulls away, just enough to disentangle himself from Edgar.

His throat is paper dry. He has to—He needs to tell Edgar the truth.

"I killed your mother," he says, because Edgar has the right to know. Should have known before this could ever have happened, before he grew close to Curtis, but better now than later. It's not fair to let him believe that Curtis is someone he isn't, that he's a good person, because he's not. He's— 

Edgar's fist is in his jacket again, and for a moment Curtis thinks he's going to get himself punched. He'd deserve it, too.

"Why the fuck would you—" Edgar stares at him with wide eyes, his mouth a hard, unhappy line. "Wait, 's that why you finally let me do this? Because you're feeling guilty?" 

"What? No. It ain't like that." 

Edgar's got it all backwards. Curtis's guilt is the reason he can't let himself have Edgar. He struggles to put it in words, but either way he tries to phrase it, it comes out sounding selfish or patronizing. 

Edgar shakes his head. "Then it doesn't bloody matter, does it? It's in the past. Like all that stuff before the train. It's over and done with." 

"It's not that easy," Curtis argues.

He can't just wipe away the past like that. There's no such thing as a clean slate. 

"Stop it, alright? You've gotta stop treating me like a kid. I know what you've done. I've known for ages. Gilliam told me all of it when I was a dumb fifteen-year-old who didn't understand why you kept giving me those sad looks. Doesn't change how I feel about you. I'm old enough to make my own choices, so if this isn't some messed-up kind of pity fuck and you actually want me, you really need to get over yourself."

Behind them, the guards thunder past the other way, dragging a screaming man whose name Curtis can't remember along with them, and Curtis instinctively takes a step further into the alcove, right into Edgar's space, still half-surprised when he isn't getting pushed away.

It takes a moment for Edgar's words to sink in. "You knew?"

If he was telling the truth, he's known for _years_. Fuck.

Edgar shrugs. "I thought you didn't want to talk about it. Didn't figure it was gonna be your version of pillow talk."

Curtis winces. "I'm sorry." At Edgar's annoyed look, he clarifies, "For ruining this, I mean. That was... bad timing."

Understatement of the fucking year.

Edgar's lip curls into a smile. "You can make it up to me."

*

_Now isn't the time_ , Curtis keeps telling Edgar, whenever he brings up the revolution.

 _Soon_ , he keeps saying.

Until soon becomes now.

*

There are screams in the air. People falling, wounded, dying. The bristling flames of the torches blazing brightly in the darkness.

Heat, and agony, and death.

Curtis rushes through the wagon to get to Mason before she makes it through the door, forever out of reach. That stone-cold, murderous bitch will be their ticket to the front section all the way to the engine, to Wilford, and all Curtis has to do is be _fast enough_. He kicks and claws and punches his way through the struggling bodies and he knows he's gonna make it when he hears his name among the screeching and the buzz.

He'd know that voice anywhere.

His head snaps around, meeting Edgar's eyes across the length of the wagon. There's a blade at his throat. Stark, naked fear written all over his face. But the fear isn't the worst. The worst is the hope. Hope that Curtis will save him.

_No. No, no, no. Fuck—_

The noises in the air are too loud and he's too far away, but Curtis almost imagines that he can hear Edgar's ragged breathing and the frantic beat of his heart, faster even than the rumbling of the wheels.

He can't save the kid. He can't save the kid and still reach Mason in time.

It's an impossible choice, and yet the answer is an obvious one. 18 years they've been waiting for a chance like that. 18 years of pain and misery and eating roaches. The revolution is more important than one man. It's more important than Edgar, more important than Curtis.

But the revolution is Gilliam's responsibility, and Edgar... he's Curtis's.

*

Edgar doesn't meet his eyes when Curtis cleans the shallow cut at the side of his neck as good as he can with the meagre medical supplies Gilliam produced for them.

"It's my bloody fault we failed," Edgar says, his tone as sullen as his eyes. He's sitting propped up against the back of his bunk, knees drawn to his chest, bruised and bleeding but alive. "If you hadn't come back—"

He bites off the words, doesn't finish the thought. Doesn't have to. They both know what would have happened if Curtis hadn't turned around.

Curtis wipes the blood and grime off Edgar's skin. In the dim light, it's hard to tell which is which; they look almost identically black.

"It's not your fault. I was the one who made the decision. And I don't regret it."

He doesn't. He won't, not when he can feel Edgar's pulse steady and firm against his fingertips. There are so many things he regrets, but not this. He'd do the same thing again in a heartbeat, face Andrew's anger and Tanya's disappointment and Yona's quite knowing gazes, the odd satisfaction on Gilliam's face when he clasped Curtis's shoulder and told him, "Maybe it's for the best."

One day, there will be a revolution that won't fail. One that's lead by someone righteous and selfless, someone who's willing to sacrifice what's important to them for the cause. But that person was never going to be Curtis. He knew that when he killed Edgar's mother, he knew it when he took the blade to his arm and lost the nerve barely half an inch into his flesh, he knew when he had to make a choice between sacrificing Edgar and sacrificing the revolution. 

He's too selfish to be a true leader. Tonight, he can bring himself to feel guilty about that.

"I don't regret it," he repeats, insistent. He tilts up Edgar's chin until the kid finally looks at him. "You hear me."

Edgar still looks like he wants to argue. Perhaps that's a good sign, better than the unnatural quiet stillness he had about him when Curtis took him back to their bunk. Arguing is what Edgar does best, so that means he's back to normal at least. But Curtis doesn't have the energy for petty squabbles left tonight. 

He leans in and kisses the unhappy downward slant of Edward's mouth until it softens underneath his lips. 

Beneath them, the train rattles on through the frozen world, unstopping.

End.


End file.
